Record 001 · 23 September 1947
Twining memo
U.S. Army Air Forces · United States
Ledger illustration of the record — not a scan of the original paper. — Night Ledger illustration of the file
Three months after the Kenneth Arnold sighting and the Roswell wreckage story, Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining, head of Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, wrote to the commanding general of the Army Air Forces. The memo, now public, said the phenomenon was real, that the objects appeared disc-like, metallic, and under intelligent control, and that a directed study should begin.
It did not say the objects were extraterrestrial. It said the reports were not all nonsense, and that the Air Force should find out what they were. Project Sign followed. The paper is one of the earliest official American statements that the discs were a subject, not a joke.
Public file: U.S. Air Force / Project Blue Book record
